That's right, The 25th Ward: The Silver Case [GOG, Steam] the follow up title to The Silver Case which gained Linux support in an update to the remastered version last year. This time around, we saw day-1 support.

Like the previous game, The 25th Ward: The Silver Case is actually a remaster made with completely rebuilt HD assets and this is the first time the game has been available outside of Japan, it also includes new content not found in the original release.

Today marks the start of an exciting shift over here at Private Internet Access. As long-time supporters of the Free and Open Source Software community, we have started the process of open sourcing our software, and over the next six months we will be releasing the source code for all our client-side applications, as well as libraries and extensions.

A list for protecting yourself and others from the most common and easiest-to-pull-off security crimes.

I spend a lot of time giving information security advice, such as why RMF (Risk Management Framework) is too top-heavy for implementing risk management practices in small or R&D-focused organizations, what the right Apache SSL settings really are or how static analysis can help improve C code. What I'm asked for the most though isn't any of those things; it's the everyday stuff that even non-technical people can do to protect themselves from the looming but nebulous threat of an information security accident.

The Linux Foundation recently unveiled ACRN (pronounced "acorn"), a new open source embedded reference hypervisor project that aims to make it easier for enterprise leaders to build an Internet of Things (IoT)-specific hypervisor.

The project, further detailed in a press release, could help fast track enterprise IoT projects by giving developers a readily-available option for such an embedded hypervisor. It will also provide a reference framework for building a hypervisor that prioritizes real-time data and workload security in IoT projects, the release said.

NXP has added an EdgeScale suite of secure edge computing tools and services to its Linux-based Layerscape SDK for six of its networking oriented LSx QorIQ Layerscape SoCs. These include the quad-core, 1.6GHz Cortex-A53 QorIQ LS1043A, which last year received Ubuntu Core support, as well as the octa-core, Cortex-A72 LS2088a (see farther below).

Chris Wilson of Intel's Linux graphics driver team posted a big set of 36 patches on Wednesday for their DRM kernel driver.

The 36 patches conclude with supporting per-context user requests for GPU frequency control. Basically it's for allowing games or applications -- like multimedia programs -- to opt-in to trying to select/request their GPU frequency rather than leaving it up to the driver. In performance-sensitive situations like games or video playback, this may be beneficial for delivering a more desirable experience if the application/engine has the logic for better determining how fast/slow of a GPU it can get by with for processing.

It seems Croteam will be doing a talk at GDC this year and it sounds like it's going to be quite interesting, with it being centred around getting games to perform smoothly. The talk will be presented by the Croteam CTO, Alen Ladavac.

It's certainly no secret I'm impressed with Starmancer [Kickstarter], the Dwarf Fortress inspired space station sim. It has a Linux demo and the funding is still coming in, the stretch goals they've reached sound fantastic.

Univa is looking to the open source community to help evolve its Navops Launch platform for enterprises migrating high-performance computing (HPC) workloads to the cloud. The open source efforts will run under the Project Tortuga banner, with access available through an Apache 2.0 license model.

Rob LaLonde, general manager and vice president for Navops at Univa, explained that the open source plan will focus on general purpose cluster and cloud management frameworks. This includes the ability to automate the deployment of clusters in local on-premises, cloud-based, and hybrid-cloud configurations. These will be applicable to applications like HPC, big data frameworks, Kubernetes, machine learning, and deep learning environments.

Univa, a leading innovator in on-premise and hybrid cloud workload management solutions for enterprise HPC customers, announced the contribution of its Navops Launch (née Unicloud) product to the open source community as Project Tortuga under an Apache 2.0 license to help proliferate the transition of enterprise HPC workloads to the cloud.

People use smartphones for lots of different reasons. Some folks like to browse the web. Some like to listen to music. Some like to spend infinite money on bad mobile games. And some people even still like to make phone calls. But one of the biggest selling points of a modern phone is the quality of its camera. Gone are the dark ages of blurry flip-phone images. Phones these days can take pictures professional enough to be screened in theaters or advertised in subway stops. And manufacturers are always looking to get an edge on the competition.

Running a small business is no easy task. The last thing you need is extra complexity in your IT infrastructure – so why turn to Linux?

Well, it could (if you're lucky) actually turn out to be a less complex choice for many tasks, depending on the distribution you select. And, critically, Linux is free; at least if you don't figure in support costs. That's an overhead ticked off the list.

Kavit Majithia is joined in the studio at MWC18 by Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO of Red Hat. Discussion topics included Red Hat’s $250 million acquisition of CoreOS and the challenges facing the open-source software market.

Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst at #MWC 2018
Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO of Red Hat, has revealed at Mobile World Congress 2018 that why telecom operators are looking for open source software platforms.

The US-based open source technology company shared details why Japan’s NTT Docomo and ARSAT, a government-owned telco in Argentina, are using Red Hat.

As part of Anokha Tech Fest, a 2 day FOSS workshop was hosted in Amrita School of Engineering on 22nd and 23rd of February along with a Fedora Release party on the second day. Around 40 people from various years and disciplines attended the event to learn about Linux, Open source and Fedora in general.

Episode 003 of the Fedora Podcast is now available. In Episode 003 features developer and software architect Langdon White from the Fedora Modularity team. Langdon also leads the Fedora Modularity objective. Langdon is a passionate technical leader with a proven success record architecting and implementing high-impact software systems. In the podcast, Langdon defines Modularity in the Fedora context, explains the issues that can be solved with it, as well as describing the process to help with this important project. You can read more about the Fedora Modularity objective over in their Pagure project.

Canonical published two security advisories on Thursday to announce the availability of Spectre mitigations for the ARM64 (AArch64) hardware architecture on its Ubuntu 17.10 and Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS systems.

In January, Canonical released several kernel updates for Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) and other supported Ubuntu releases with software mitigations against the Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities. These patches were first released for 64-bit (amd64) architectures, and then for 32-bit (i386), PPC64el, and s390x systems.

Today, the company announced the availability of new kernel updates that address both the Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities for the ARM64 (AArch64) hardware architecture, patching the Raspberry Pi 2 kernel for Ubuntu 17.10, as well as its derivatives.

The Red Hat community has patiently awaited a retpoline kernel implementation that remediates CVE-2017-5715 (Spectre v2) and closes all Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities that have captured headlines this year.

Red Hat's initial fixes rely upon microcode updates for v2 remediation, a decision that leaves the vast majority of AMD64-capable processors in an exploitable state. Intel's new microcode has proven especially problematic; it performs badly and the January 2018 versions were plagued with stability issues that crashed many systems. It is a poor solution to a pressing problem.

t's not the first time an image has been used to give a victim malware, but it may be the first time it's been used so narrowly. According to the security firm Imperva, their StickyDB database management system (DBMS) honeypot has uncovered an attack that places malware, which cryptomines Monero, on PostgreSQL DBMS servers. Its attack vector? An image of Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson.

Now, you might ask, "How many PostgreSQL DBMS servers are out there on the internet to be attacked?" The answer: "More than you'd expect." A Shodan search revealed almost 710,000 PostgreSQL servers ready to be hacked. It appears there are so many of them because it's way too easy, especially on Amazon Web Services (AWS), to set up PostgreSQL servers without security.

The debate whether law enforcement agencies should be given exclusive access to iOS-powered Apple devices started when the FBI was unable to unlock San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. Eventually, FBI found other ways to get inside Apple’s secured digital fortress, through an Israel-based company called Cellebrite.

In the latest news, we have come across about a new iPhone unlocking device called GrayKey that can be used by law enforcement guys to harvest passcode of an iPhone and other iOS-powered devices such as iPads and iPods.

Every year, Stack Overflow conducts its developer survey and shares its results with the public for analysis. Expanding its reach, this year over 100,000 developers took part in the 30-minute survey and told how they learn new technologies, which tools they use to get their work done, and what they look for while hunting some job.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing the different findings of the survey with you and telling you how it compares to the past years’ trends. Today, I’ll be telling you about the platforms that were most commonly used by the developers over the past year.

We’re excited to announce the release of Zorin OS 12.3. This version focuses on strenghtening the fundamentals of the operating system that contribute towards Zorin OS’s unique user experience: simplicity, security, and functionality.

Roderick Colenbrander and those working with him on "Winevulkan" to provide a clean Vulkan implementation for Wine supporting the Vulkan ICD concept, etc, rather than the old hacked together code in Wine-Staging have done a great job. With Roderick's latest Winevulkan patches, this new implementation is considered usable.

It was just at the start of March that the initial Winevulkan support merged and since then more patch series have landed for this implementation that allows Windows programs on Wine to tap Vulkan support, permitting the host system has working Vulkan API support.

Cedric Bail of Samsung's Open-Source Group presented today at the Embedded Linux Conference on EFL 2.0 as part of the Enlightenment project's long-standing goal to provide a new and unified API.

While the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries 1.x (EFL1) continues to be maintained, the developers at Samsung OSG that are part of the Enlightenment team have been busy construction EFL 2.0 and hope to show off the first of their new wares in 2018.

I just flipped the switch for the 3.28 Release Video. I’m really excited for all the new awesome features the community has landed, but I am a bit sad that I don’t have time to put more effort into the video this time around. A busy time schedule collided with technical difficulties in recording some of the apps. When I was staring at my weekly schedule Monday there didn’t seem much chance for a release video to be published at all..

I realize I have been a wee bit silent on the blog (not counting my replies in the comments section). This was due to private issues that drained the desire for social interactions. Nevertheless there was quite a bit of activity on the Slackware packaging front.

The source for UEK has always been available at oss.oracle.com, as a git repository with full git history. Starting now, we'll also be posting the UEK source on github.com/oracle/linux-uek. By doing so, we intend to increase the visibility for our work and to make it even easier for people to access the source for UEK. We will also use this repository for working with developers at partner companies and in the Linux community. The repository contains the source for the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel including a small number of Oracle additions which have not yet been accepted into the mainline Linux kernel source tree.

The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) is a Linux kernel built by Oracle and supported via Oracle Linux support. Its focus is performance, stability, and minimal backports by tracking the mainline source code as closely as is practical. UEK is well-tested and used to run Oracle's Engineered Systems, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and large enterprise deployments for Oracle customers.

“Cloud computing” has been a catch-all phrase over the past decade to describe anything that’s a shift away from hardware servers. However, the term has become nebulous in recent times with the growing diversity in how many different ways you can leverage the cloud.

We’ve come far from a simplistic separation between on-premises and cloud. Today, it’s about on-premises versus a range of different cloud options. Indeed, the cloud can be a confusing place for newcomers and veterans alike, with new options cropping up every few months, and the landscape always shifting towards the newer and better.

But how do you choose between good, better and best? Let’s compare the various cloud deployment technologies available today and find the common ground and what separates them from each other.

Sigal is a "simple static gallery generator" with a straightforward design, a nice feature set, and great themes. It was started as a toy project, but has nevertheless grown into a sizable and friendly community. After struggling with maintenance using half a dozen photo gallery projects along the way, I feel I have found a nice little gem that I am happy to share with LWN readers.

First Distribution, a First Distribution joins Red Hat cloud and SP programmeSouth African distributor of datacentre, enterprise and cloud solutions, has joined the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider programme.

The Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider program allows cloud, hosting, system integrator, and managed service providers to host and resell certified Red Hat offerings on-demand via multi-tenant, dedicated, and managed models.

Chris Richardson, MSP business manager for First Distribution, says his organisation is pleased to be taking this step with Red Hat, which will allow First Distribution to expand its cloud offering, and further focus on hosting.

A series of heavy noreasters hit the US east coast over the last couple weeks. This coincided with my travel dates back to Rochester, NY. While we didn’t have flooding, we had a lot of snow. A lot of snow means canceled flights.

As I made my way through border control in Dublin, Ireland on March 7, I discovered my connection to New York City would likely be canceled. A meander from baggage claim to the check-in desk confirmed this. Fortunately, Aer Lingus had no issue putting me up in a hotel overnight with dinner and breakfast to catch the next flight to New York the next day.

More in Tux Machines

Here’s GNOME 3.28 – See What’s New

The latest version of GNOME 3 has been released today. Version 3.28 contains six months of work and new features by the GNOME community and comes with many improvements and new features.
One major new feature for this release is automatic downloading of operating systems in Boxes, which takes the work out of creating and running virtual machines – just pick the operating system that you want to create a virtual machine of, and Boxes will now download and install it for you.
Other highlights include improvements to the Calendar and Contacts applications, the ability to star files and folders in the Files application, and improved support for Thunderbolt 3 and Bluetooth LE devices. GNOME’s default UI font has also been overhauled to be more attractive and easy to read, and the on-screen keyboard has been rewritten to be more reliable and has layouts for a number of different locales.
Also: textures and paintables

LG releases webOS Open Source Edition, looks to expand webOS usage

LG’s smart TVs ship with an operating system called webOS, which is the latest version of an operating system that was developed by Palm to run on phones, acquired by HP to use with tablets, and eventually sold to LG, which is still using it today.
But now LG wants to expand the adoption of webOS and the company is working with the South Korean government to solicit business proposals from other companies interested in using webOS.
LG has also released a webOS Open Source Edition version of the operating system.

Test driving 4 open source music players and more

In my last article, I described my latest music problem: I need an additional stage of amplification to make proper use of my new phono cartridge. While my pre-amplifier contains a phono stage, its gain is only suitable for cartridges that output about 5mV, whereas my new cartridge has a nominal output of 0.4mV.
Based on my investigation, I liked the looks of the Muffsy phono kits, so I ordered the head amplifier, the power supply, and the back panel. I also needed to obtain a case to hold the boards and the back panel, available online from many vendors. Muffsy does not sell the “wall wart” necessary to power the unit, so I ordered one of those from a supplier in California. Finally, inspecting my soldering iron, solder “sucker,” and solder, I’ve realized I need to do better—so a bit more shopping, online or local, is in order there. Finally, for those, like me, whose soldering skills may be rusty and perhaps were not all that great to begin with, Muffsy kindly offers links to two instructional videos.